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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#234: Time Out

Often, it feels like there aren’t enough hours in a day. We juggle dozens of warring obligations — work, home, friends, family — alongside our own wants and needs. At one time, you might back out of a friend’s birthday to visit an ailing family member. But at another, you’ll go to an important work conference rather than visiting your mother across the country. You never know how much time you have — to make your career, to follow your dreams, to spend with your family. It’s an uncertainty we all learn how to live with, one way or another.

In the spirit of this uncertainty, this week’s prompts focus on time. Who has it and who doesn’t, and who is trying to carve it out, minute by minute.

This week's prompts

Write a story about someone whose time is running out.

Angst – 112 stories

Write a story about someone who wishes they could turn back time.

Character – 70 stories

Write about someone taking advantage of some unexpected free time.

Fluff – 31 stories

Start or end your story with someone saying, “We have all the time in the world.”

Dialogue – 71 stories

Set your story in a place that’s frozen in time — literally or metaphorically.

Narrative – 56 stories

Stories

“To Live In Four Days” by Gillian Del Mundo

Submitted to Contest #234

Content warning: Attempted suicide, depression “Stop!” His hand reached for the fabric of the back of the girl’s coat, pulling her away from the edge. The two clumsily regained their footing, safe on the ground. She turned around, staring at him, eyes wide with surprise. “Who are you?” She asked. And thus, Kami had broken a rule: A grim reaper must never speak to a mortal. For if they do, they will be seen by them. - Nobody could run away from the God of Death. That was the rule of the world, unable to ever be altered. No matte...

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“The Traveler ” by Travis O

Submitted to Contest #234

The silence is haunting. It used to be a friend—a trusted ally—but now it’s different. Where once it comforted me, now it taunts me. Like a bomb slowly ticking away, calm before its eruption. The more I try to push it out, the more invasive it becomes. It’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. An enemy I can’t kill. I had the same feeling in Berlin, right before I’d detonated my trap. Only, back then I had no idea what was in store for me. You see, I’d managed to lure my target into a small shed out behind their house using the most ru...

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“Unraveling ” by No Where Near Perfect Mom

Submitted to Contest #234

Within the bright vacant room, the echoing of his footsteps were all the accompaniment the man desired as he approached the lonely table and chair. His steps were light and quick against the linoleum floor and brought a sense of comfort and solitude to the situation at hand. As he pulled the chair from under the table, he knew the unraveling had already begun. The chair creaked slightly under the burden of his weight, but he knew the weight would soon be lifted. On the table laid a single white sheet of paper. Next to the paper was a freshly...

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“No Secrets” by JOHN GORDON

Submitted to Contest #234

*Disclaimer - this story contains sexual themes and graphic descriptions of violence. Churches are strange places. The Church of St. Augustine’s in the small village of Ramswick-on-Tye was one of the few churches that hung onto its Norman origins. It had beautiful ornate stained glass windows, hand carved pews and a golden lectern that would make the pope green with envy. One Saturday morning, after the completion of Mass, Father Luke was praying quietly at the altar when he heard the heavy wooden doors swing open. He ended h...

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“Ice Breakers on a Monday morning ” by Rory O'Dell

Submitted to Contest #234

I hate icebreakers. I don’t want to break the ice. The ice can stay firmly intact for all I care. I don’t want to get to know any of these people. It’s 9am on a Monday morning and my boss wants me to join a project about the reintegration of systems for the financial something or other... I wasn’t listening. I’m sat behind a stout balding man of about fifty. Counting the hairs on his head is the only thing keeping me engaged right now. It can’t be more than sixty, I don’t think. I wish he would just shave them off because that tragic combove...

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“Wake Up Call” by Gray Mediocratic

Submitted to Contest #234

The highway glimmers with light rain, the dark evening’s street lights reflecting in the ripples. The car’s heater breaks the soundless drive. The restaurant was a busy shift tonight, and Dave had worked an event evening for a local wedding party. Whilst he drove the long highway towards home, his phone rang with a familiar ringtone that signaled it was his son calling, Avery. He reached blindly into the glove compartment, retrieving the ringing device and answered it, putting it on speaker. “Hey,” He gree...

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“All the Stolen Moments” by Ian Gonzales

Submitted to Contest #234

“Can I help you?” I come back to myself with a start, surprised as always that I lost track of time. It’s happening more and more lately, as I slowly lose control of the gift that I turned into a curse. “Oh, uh, just this.” I place a carton of a dozen eggs on the counter, careful not to set them down too hard. Such fragile things, eggs. A bit like hopes. Or dreams. “I don’t know, mister,” the smiling woman behind the counter says, eyeing the eggs like I’ve set an uncut diamond in front of her. Her nametag says “Melissa,” but I don’t need to ...

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“Aladdin's Cave” by David Cantwell

Submitted to Contest #234

The opening lyrics from If I Could Turn Back Time, start to echo in my head the moment I’m told to make my wish. My inner musician cringes for a moment when I realize I’m quoting a Cher song. Sure, Sonny and Cher were cute back in the day, I loved that variety show they had. I just can’t help but think how their lives verged madly away from each other after they got divorced. If I could turn back time with a single wish, maybe I would reset them to their earlier days. That isn’t what I’d wish for though. Given a single wish, what would any...

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“Dizzyland” by Kathy Jeffords

Submitted to Contest #234

Abby has to use a stool to climb into bed with me. She puts her chubby hands on my cheeks, her blonde ringlets falling into her blue eyes. “My mommy.” “My baby,” I say. She wants snuggles, so I pull her close. When I glance at it, the clock has only ticked forward six minutes. But the child next to me is longer, her face not as round, her curls looser, shoulder-length. “My, you’re growing fast, Abby!” “I’m a big girl!” She sits up, stretches. Didn’t her pink nightie used to have ruffles on it? Abby scrambles down the bed. She hops onto the c...

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“Chasing Sunlight” by Morgan Aloia

Submitted to Contest #234

Claude sat in rapture on a public bench that he felt in a very deep and personal way belonged to him, because it was where he spent a brief period every day smoking his pipe just prior to his afternoon shift at the manufactury where he dumped most of his waking hours. He had been joined there that day by the bleach-clean skeleton of a cat, moving of it’s own accord. It had sat with him for some half of an hour now, and in that time he thought of the other pitiable scavengers he had seen about the streets of Roullac. He found no resem...

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“Samantha's freedom ” by Kevin Keegan

Submitted to Contest #234

In the bustling city of Cork, lived a young woman named Samantha. Samantha was a dedicated marketing executive, always on the go, juggling tight deadlines and attending back-to-back meetings. Her life was a whirlwind of emails, conference calls, and endless to-do lists. Personally her boss hated her but professionally he couldn't exist without her, she was just that good. Every workflow flowed through Samantha and without her things just didn't happen. Her home life though was empty apart from her cat Mildred, she adored Mildred. Samantha wa...

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“1898 at the Lighthouse - A Whale of a Secret ” by Kristi Gott

Submitted to Contest #234

The majestic whale who had seen many decades was floating with the swells near the lighthouse. She knew her time was nearing, when her essence would go on to another life. She began to instinctively look for a soft, sandy beach for her 40-foot-long body to rest. For many years the wise whale taught the younger whales and helped lead when they swam in the migrations up and down the Oregon coast. They liked to spend summers in the Arctic and go south to the warm, tropical waters off Mexico for winters. There they bore their cal...

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“Interstellar Imaginings” by Lincoln McAlister

Submitted to Contest #234

This sun in this galaxy was going to explode, create a black hole ripped in the universe. The advanced humans on this earth like planet had found out when it would by measuring time. All suns live for billions of years; no one really knows for sure how long, it happens suddenly like a blink in a second. Basically, explosion happens creates a hole, a vacuum in the space time continuum, a rip. This sucks everything in around it, whole galaxies - a galaxy is a cluster of planets surrounding a star which is the sun. The sun gives life to this pl...

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“the interrogation” by Lior Blum

Submitted to Contest #234

The interrogation – by Lior Blum Lazar "we have all the time in the world" said Sargent Daniels, and sat down on the opposite side of the table. The white-haired man in handcuffs looked up to meet his gaze. While Daniels was wearing a rather smart jacket and tie, the old man was wearing what you would think of if you tried to picture a fairytale wizard. The old man smiled at Daniels, but said nothing. Daniels took a long swig from his paper coffee cup and continued: "you were arrested outside the city zoo, demanding the guards would free y...

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“Time Travel” by Daniel Ward

Submitted to Contest #234

“Do you believe in time travel?” Marty cradled his wake-up cup of coffee across from her at the kitchen counter. Forty-five years together had fused them into a sounding board as familiar and as comfortable as their own consciences. Louise was comfortable and familiar as well in her silk robe and loosely tied hair, half undone and trailing across slim shoulders. Her features had aged, but her soul remained that of the girl he fell in love with. “Time travel. You mean like a time machine?” “No. More subtle. I don’t normally remember dreams. ...

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$250

Prize money

340

Contest entries

132

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 26, 2024 EST

Won by David Pampu 🏆

Title: 6:47 PST

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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